We have a very specific rule in place that states nobody is allowed to copy articles or columns directly from another source (especially paid insider information) and paste the article in its entirety in this forum. It's copyright infringement and we will not tolerate it. We've recently come across one such entry, and it got us a nasty letter from an ESPN Lawyer as a result.

So, consider this your only warning. If you paste large sections or entire columns from other sites, you will be banned for 90 days, no questions asked. We will not tolerate it.

If you want to discuss what these writers have said, you are allowed to paste up to 1 short paragraph paraphrasing the point of the column, but you must always include a direct link to the full story as well.

How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission?Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.

The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes- The nature of the copyrighted work- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole- The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.

Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

49ers webzone: Win or lose, i hope you injure Sherman. Like a serious career ending injury. I don't want him to get paid.49ers webzone: noise should not be the overwhelming reason a team is favored. they need to spray noise-damping foam onto the ceiling of that place.

If I understand that correctly, the ESPN situation revolves around the fact that their articles are commercial in nature, and quoting substantial portions of an article have the effect of diminishing the market value their copyrighted work.

(All copyrighted material is protected, commercial or otherwise, but market value is more of an issue with commercial work.)

49ers webzone: Win or lose, i hope you injure Sherman. Like a serious career ending injury. I don't want him to get paid.49ers webzone: noise should not be the overwhelming reason a team is favored. they need to spray noise-damping foam onto the ceiling of that place.

Don't get too upset upon receiving that threatening letter. Their attorneys have got nothing else to do but to harass harmless sites like this. They're just flexing their muscles letting you know that you better not get too carried away with their material.

Threatening posters with a 90 day suspension will only result in fewer posters and posts on this message board. Which I am sure is not your intention.

Bigpumpkin wrote:Don't get too upset upon receiving that threatening letter. Their attorneys have got nothing else to do but to harass harmless sites like this. They're just flexing their muscles letting you know that you better not get too carried away with their material.

Threatening posters with a 90 day suspension will only result in fewer posters and posts on this message board. Which I am sure is not your intention.

If you got a letter from an ESPN corporate lawyer, I bet your feelings would be a tad different.

Block ESPN's IP addy so their little minions can't come on here and see what we're up to.

I have an even better one.

Simply do what we have been doing for years. Quote a paragraph or a few lines and link to the article. Its not them at fault but our posters! This isn't anything new boys and girls.

Check out unsilent_majority's post on Eric Berry. A classic example of how to do it correctly. Gets the information out there for us to see but follows the copyright rules that have been in place in the media for years.

Block ESPN's IP addy so their little minions can't come on here and see what we're up to.

a) It's unlikely ESPN's corporate attorneys are in the same building, using the same internet connectionb) ESPN's website is likely hosted at a data center off-premises, so the IP addresses - of which there will be several - wouldn't match what employees at their corporate headquarters are coming from, anywaysc) You could just use a proxy server to get around this, anyways; or carry around a Verizon Wireless air cardd) Even if you could block all the proper IPs/subnets/domains, that wouldn't prevent them from pulling up a cached copy on Google

Those are just the first four reasons that popped into my head as to why that wouldn't work, and that's not even counting the ethical/moral/rule-following side of things, lol.

Is the issue really about not giving credit to the writer? Say its.... Sando's NFC west blog, and we paste one whole blog entry (all 2-3 paragraphs) or take a screencap of the blog, and link to the entry. Is that an issue?

Sin on Sunday wrote:Is the issue really about not giving credit to the writer? Say its.... Sando's NFC west blog, and we paste one whole blog entry (all 2-3 paragraphs) or take a screencap of the blog, and link to the entry. Is that an issue?

It's not just about giving credit to the writer, it's about respecting the rights of the copyright holder to disseminate their intellectual property the way they want to -- in the case of Sando's ESPN blog, those rights belong to both Sando and ESPN. (And their lawyers.)

The forum rule prohibits copying entire articles. Even if an article only two or three paragraphs, find a way to copy a portion, summarize, and link it. It's not that hard.

But for the record, I think your foil-hat comment was on the mark. I seriously doubt that ESPN lawyers would pick on Seahawk websites for copyright infringement and ignore copyright infringement on rustbucket websites just because they're rustbucket websites.

49ers webzone: Win or lose, i hope you injure Sherman. Like a serious career ending injury. I don't want him to get paid.49ers webzone: noise should not be the overwhelming reason a team is favored. they need to spray noise-damping foam onto the ceiling of that place.

So ESPN has nothing better to do than have people online 24/7 scouring the tens of thousands of sports forums on the internet for all the major sports specifically trying to find and interpret copied "insider" information, and just happened to find one single thing on this site and send a letter about it? That seems like a HUGE waste of money and resources to hunt down one tiny piece of information. . . not trying to say that it didn't happen, I just know the company I work for suffers from leaked information all the time but there is no way we would ever have the resources to scour the entire internet for this information and take the time to send out a cease and desist except in the most egregious offenses and we are a company with very few products unlike ESPN whom is only making very marginal supplemental gains with insider subscriptions, 99.5% of their income is via advertising. . .I'm shocked they are so protective.

If they really ARE that anal about it the better option might be to just make the forums invisible to users who aren't logged in, I don't imagine they have the resources to actually take the time to create and confirm log-ins for the tens of thousands of NFL, MLB, NBA etc fan sites out there, that would be insane. I realize the 'just dont post it' approach is pretty easy for most people to follow but you're also at the mercy of having to catch it if it happens.

There are 3 or 4 ways, MLA etc., that are completely legal to reference things. Having "insider access" is no different than paying for the right to read a book aka buying it. There are legal ways to reference everything, even in large chunks. They were completely blowing smoke if all they were saying is you cant copy anything. Anything with a proper reference is legal and they would be fools to not only bring such a trivial thing to court but know they were going to lose from the beginning.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”